Old soldier Daniel Currie used his Second World War memories to survive after being trapped in a ravine for two days.

The 87-year-old walker broke his elbow and shoulder after slipping and rolling 250ft down into the hidden gulch.

From his hospital bed yesterday, Daniel said: "I couldn't get up so I started to claw my way back up twice. Each time the earth gave way and I couldn't get more than a few feet.

"I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever be found.

I heard a dog barking and a voice. I was shouting 'help me' but nobody came." Great-grandfather Daniel, with no food or drink, curled up into a ball and covered himself with leaves as night fell and temperatures dropped to 3C.

He even began hallucinating, seeing his time as a gunnery officer's assistant in Europe in the war.

Daniel said: "I could see trains arriving nearby with lots of troops on them. There were about 30 army trucks on the river bank opposite where I was stuck. I could see lots of police officers and I was shouting 'help, help', but no one came.

"I was just involved in this fantasy world. It must have been the hallucinations that kept me going." In reality Daniel was hearing traffic from the busy A470 dual carriageway, close to where he was trapped near Abercynon, Rhondda.

Luckily people living nearby noticed his Ford Ka had been parked in a lay-by for two days and alerted police. Daniel was found barely conscious.

His daughter Lucille Hill, 57, had feared the worst.

She said: "I didn't expect him to be found alive, I'm sure his experience during the war helped him."